Conventional rural or curbside mailboxes are relatively deep, which makes it nearly impossible for an individual to reach to the back to retrieve all the mail and packages contained therein. This is particularly so when the person is attempting to retrieve their mail while remaining inside of a vehicle. Stepping out of the vehicle can be inconvenient, potentially dangerous, and if the weather is cold, raining or snowing, uncomfortable.
There have been other trays that have been used within mailboxes and which receive the mail deposited into the mailbox. These trays allow a user to pull the tray partially out of the mailbox opening and retrieve the mail contained within the tray. While these trays do allow for the relatively easy retrieval of mail deposited within some mailboxes they suffer from certain drawbacks.
Particularly, these prior art trays are normally rigid trays or troughs that are simply small enough to fit within a particular mailbox. Examples of these types of rigid trays are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,600,143; 5,083,703; 5,765,749; and U.S. Design Pat. No. D438,688. These rigid trays, however, cannot be custom fit to the size of a particular mailbox. At this time there are over fifty mailboxes approved by the United States Postal Service in varying sizes. A rigid tray will only be effective within a small range of sizes. Mail may be lost or delayed if a tray is used that is too small for a particular mailbox and leaves a sizable gap between the mailbox and the tray. A piece of mail may fall within this gap and could lie undiscovered for a length of time. Further, using a tray that is significantly narrower than the mailbox effectively results in the tray greatly reducing the usable space in the mailbox and could prevent larger articles or mail or packages from fitting within the mailbox. It is therefore desirable to have a tray that has a variable width to accommodate various-sized mailboxes.
Other trays have been used within mailboxes that may be folded along one of a plurality of pre-formed joints to allow a user to custom fit the tray to a particular mailbox. Examples of these types of folded trays are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,753,385 and 5,009,366. These foldable units, however, rely on materials, such as cardboard or thin sheets of plastic that allow the user to easily form the tray. These materials are oftentimes not durable and can be easily broken or torn. Additionally, bending the material to form the joints inherently creates weak points in the tray, which may fail or tear thereby ruining the tray.
The present invention overcomes these and other disadvantages of prior art mailbox trays by providing a durable adjustable size mailbox tray.